The outsize influence of small states is fading in the EU

Have you ever sat at a table so large you needed opera glasses to see what was happening at the other end? Such is the fate of those involved in gatherings of the EU. In Brussels, meetings with more than two dozen attendees—one from each of 27 member states, plus various hangers-on—are the norm. The upshot of everyone having a seat at the table, both metaphorically and literally, is a rather odd distribution of power. For whereas a handful of participants represent countries with tens of millions of citizens each, the fellow from Malta is there by dint of a population the size of a couple of Parisian arrondissements. The big beasts of the EU, notably France and Germany, hold plenty of sway. But a club which is happy to negotiate through the night to reach consensus is one that ends up giving a disproportionate amount of power to the likes of Ireland, Luxembourg or the Baltics. Alas for the tiddlers, the era of small-state privilege may be drawing to an end.